The Frontlines of Influencer Marketing - September 2016 - #1

We’re excited to announce the launch of our monthly newsletter. The Boom Gazette is all about keeping you up to speed on the ever changing world of influencer marketing. We get so many questions from all sort of companies –What’s the best social media platform? When should I post? How many influencers should I use? The list goes on. Our goal is to help you navigate through this new space and eliminate some of the confusion. We hope you’ll be enlightened with some tasty nuggets of wisdom from a company who has been on the front lines for the last 3 years. Enjoy.

–Evan Aaronson (President of Boomopolis)

Emerging Platforms

Musical.ly

We’ve made the jump! – Musical.ly has become the newest social media platform for influencer marketing. The young demographic and high engagement make it the perfect place to let your brand be known.

Only being launched in October 2014, As of June 2016 Musical.ly has more than 80 Million registered users on the app.

Check out some of our recent work on the platform!

If you know any 10 to 18 year olds, then the skyrocketing popularity of the app, Musical.ly is loud and clear. Back in 2015, we contacted record labels alerting them that this is a great new way to promote their music. Now, Musical.ly has quickly become the new outlet for influencers and brands alike with over 80 million active users. Musical.ly has also topped the charts in the iOS app store in over 19 different countries.

Facebook

It ain’t just for the oldies anymore. Facebook’s influencer push has successfully brought the younger generations back to the platform. And FB LIVE is killing it – adding a feature that was first made popular on competitors platforms. A typical Facebook post gets to only 12% of your followers, while FB live goes to approximately 80% of followers – a great device now being utilized by marketers. Facebook was also one of the first platforms to fully integrate VR and 360 photo/video into its day to day usage. Cool stuff. This has brought new content to the platform that you can’t see anywhere else. With the younger generation’s fascination with this emerging technology they are staying, engaging and talking much more.

Instagram

It’s clear that they have deliberately attacked Snapchat with their new “Stories” update. So how do you stay current in this battle? You adapt. Here at Boomopolis, we have become experts in Instagram’s new “stories” update. We have weighed the pros and cons of being on Instagram vs. Snapchat. Based on your specific brand, we are now able to help put a package together on either platform that will get you the most engagement and impressions with the same basic content.

FUN FACT: Influencer Marketing is now the fastest growing channel for customer aquisition. 84% of Marketers expect to use at least 1 influencer in their campaigns over the next year.

Tips & Tricks

Here we have a few of our strategies, and in future newsletters we’ll dive deeper into each one….

Track Emerging Platforms
There are multiple ways to stay ahead of the game when it comes to influencer marketing. For instance, staying on top of all of the new platform updates and changes. – noted above.

Common Mistake – Getting Hung Up on Individual Influencers

One common mistake brands make is getting hung up on specific influencers based on what they see in their social media profile. Their profile doesn’t show how easy they are to work with, their cost, how reliable they are, and engagement can often be misleading, etc. There can also be an advantage to using micro-influencers vs. big influencers. Since we’ve worked with so many of them, we have the expertise on the best ones to use for your brand.

We generally use influencers who have the 3 top qualities to get the best ROI for the companies we work with: creativity, affordability and reliability. There are a lot of elements to influencers which include… *Their following *Their engagement *How targeted they are *How expensive they are *How easy they are to work with *How creative their posts are there *Their availability to advertise your product

We look at all these elements and try to choose the best ones which will fit within your budget and give you the biggest bang for your buck.

Using Micro-Influencers vs. Big Influencers

The thing to remember is that influencer marketing is a lot like the stock market. If you only bet on 2 stocks, they may both be home runs or maybe 1 single and 1 double, or maybe even 2 strikeouts. The point is that 2 influencers and one platform is really not enough influencers for a full test to see if this type of marketing works. Ideally, for a test, we recommend utilizing multiple influencers so at least one of them can hit a home run.

Contests

These can be a great way to guarantee engagement. The bottom line is these fans absolutely love the influencers that they follow. When an influencer says that they will follow back, DM or chat 1-on-1, the fans are willing to do just about anything to win that contest. The catch is that the fan, in order to be included in the contest, is forced to interact with the brand in some way. This then directly correlates to engagement and impressions. Then, of course, there’s that prize money which always helps.

Sharing

Another strategy we use, when applicable, is simply having a large group of people simply share the post – and this is a lot cheaper than having create an original post. On Facebook, they can even make a comment above the share like, “I’m getting on this app. Who’s with me?”

Takeovers

If the goal is to gain followers on the brand’s account, there’s always the takeover method – where the influencer says, “Hey, I’m taking over the brand’s Snapchat account for a few hours. Come follow me on there.”

Influencer Marketing News

Influencers are not just making silly videos or taking selfies. They’re doing brand deals, appearing in movies, selling merchandise and ringtones, licensing their content to companies like Amazon Prime and attending influencer related events.

– FILM: Tyler Perry knows what’s up. He cast a slew of influencers for his BOO! A Madea Halloween. Some include Brock O’Hurn, Liza Koshy and Jimmy Tatro

– TV: Jake Paul cast as a regular on Bizaardvark on Disney Jr.

Are All Brands Media Companies?

Having social strategy nowadays means producing content that is on brand and engaging. As the landscape is changing, huge non-media brands such as Marriot and Pepsi are creating content studios. This shift is putting them ahead of the game in more ways than one. We predict that within a few years, the majority of consumer facing non-media brands will also open up their own content studios. Who’s next to follow this trend? Betty Crocker?

Influencer Spotlight

Jack DiGiovanni is known for his outstanding comedy account on Instagram – @jackk.lmao. Jack has recently worked with brands such as, Solo app, Ticketchat and Mojiedit. Jack has recently broken through the million followers mark and earned himself the very much respected, Instagram verified check. He also just launched some merchandise which you can purchase via http://jackdigiovanni.com

LET US HELP YOU STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE.

Brands hire Boomopolis to organize the best social media influencers to do sponsored posts on their behalf. We have relationships with thousands of influencers, and we handle which ones to use (we track them daily), how many posts, best times to post, payment, strategies and more. Through our network, we have access to over 200 million combined followers spread out over various platforms. We’ve worked with brands ranging from Klondike to Fox to numerous apps. Are you next? See our highlight reel HERE:

Ready to Start a Campaign? Need Consulting? (Yes, we do that too – one on one sessions either in person or via Skype)